female ritual healing in mormonism by j. a. stapley and k. wright

8/2/2019 Female Ritual Healing in Mormonism by J. A. Stapley and K. Wright

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FEMALE RITUAL HEALINGIN MORMONISM

Jonathan A. Stapley and Kristine Wright

Wash and anoint the sick, beneath your hands,Those not to death appointed, shall revive;

Let no man say you nay, what God commands,The pure and humble spirit understands,

And through it oft, the dead are made alive.1*

ON MARCH 2, 1876, EIGHT WOMEN from the Salt Lake Eleventh Wardgathered at the Wickens family home. They were fasting for SisterWickens who had developed a problem with her speech and for a

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JONATHAN A. STAPLEY {[email protected]} is an exec-utive with a firm that is industrializing his graduate research. KRISTINEWRIGHT {[email protected]} currently works as an independ-ent historian. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: We thank Jill Mulvay Derr and

John Turner for their criticism of draft manuscripts. Initial capitals and ter-minal punctuation have been added to quotations as needed. Unless other-wise noted, all unpublished documents, letters, and minutes are in the LDSChurch History Library.

1[Louisa Lula Greene Richards?] Womans Thought and Womans

Work, poem written for and read at the first Semi-Annual Conference ofthe Relief Society, reprinted in Anonymous, Relief Society Conference,Womans Exponent 18 (October 15, 1889): 78. This stanza was includedamong several intended to summarize Joseph Smiths teachings to the Fe-male Relief Society of Nauvoo.


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Sister Young who had been a cripple for 20 years. Mary Ann

Burnham Freeze described what followed:They had washed Sister Young preparatory to having her annointedwhich ordanance I attended to after we had prayers, Sister Lawson be-ing mouth made an excellent and humble prayer. Then I called Sophatoseal the annointing, which she did ina praiseworthymanner, for oneso young. Then I called upon Jane to annoint the head of SisterWickens and Sister Newsom to administer to her. They both did ex-ceedingly well, I will here mention that we all laid our hands on wheneach one was administered to. Then it was proposed to bless Sister

Louie Felt, she being poorly. Sister Cushing annointed and Sister Law-son blessed her.After wewere through with these,SisterAggie Tuckettwho isvery sick senta word forus tocome andpray for her.We went inand Lizzie Felt annointed, and, I administered to her. Felt, that theywould all soon be healed They were so grateful to us, seemed to lookupon us as ministering angels.2**

Freezes diary reveals how healing rites conveyedboth liturgical knowl-edge through ritual participation and created social networks among

Mormon women. Religious historians have long regarded ritual as alens through which they can examine how communities created andre-created theircultural world. Incontrast tothepriesthood anointing,sealing, and blessing ritual that comprises the entirety of current Mor-mon healing praxis,3***Mormon healing in the past was ritually diverse,incorporating many forms and enlisting a variety of participants. Sev-eral authors have discussed the participation of women in Mormonhealing rituals.4****This study however, traces the history of female ritualhealing within thebroader contextofLDS Churchliturgyand strives to

fill the explanatory lacunae between the past and present.

2 The Journal of Mormon History

** 2Mary Ann Freeze,Diaries, 187599,March2,1876, photocopy ofho-lograph, L. Tom Perry Special Collections and Manuscripts, Harold B. LeeLibrary, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah (hereafter Perry SpecialCollections).*** 3For an outline of the ritual, see Church Handbook of Instructions, Book2: PriesthoodandAuxiliary Leaders, Section 1: Melchizedek Priesthood (Salt Lake

City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1998), 17273.**** 4Carol Lynn Pearson, Daughters of Light (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft,1973), 6575; Claudia Lauper Bushman, Mystics and Healers, inMormonSisters: Women in Early Utah, edited by Claudia L. Bushman (new edition;Logan: Utah State University Press,1997), 124; Linda King Newell, A Gift


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We have previously described womens integral participation inthe development of Mormonisms distinct healing liturgy by the timeof the settlement of the Great Basin; that research is essential contextfor this study.5+In this paper, we brief ly review this history, highlight-ing the interaction of healing ritual and power with the developmentof the temple. We then discuss the various healing rites employed bywomen inUtahand the contexts inwhich they administered. All Mor-mon ritual operates in twopartiallyoverlapping liturgical modalities:one folk and the other formal. Throughout the nineteenth century,Mormon liturgy generally existed as oral tradition. There were no

manuals to dictate precise ritual formulations; instead Latter-daySaints learned ritual performance from the example and mentoringof both male and female Church leaders. Folk pedagogy served theLatter-day Saints well; however, due topressures within and outside oftheChurch, the hierarchy first reformed liturgical authority and then

STAPLEY AND WRIGHT/FEMALE RITUAL HEALING 3

Given, A Gift Taken: Washing, Anointing, and Blessing the Sick amongMormon Women, Sunstone 6 (September/October 1981): 1625; CarolCornwall Madsen, Mormon Women and the Struggle for Definition,Dia-logue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 14 (Winter 1981): 4047; Thomas G. Al-exander, Mormonism in Transition: A History of the Latter-day Saints, 18901930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986), 29193; Linda King New-ell, Gifts of the Spirit: Womens Share, in Sisters in Spirit: Mormon Womenin Historical and Cultural Perspective, edited by Maureen Ursenbach Beecherand Lavina Fielding Anderson (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987),11150; John Sillito and Constance L. Lieber, In Blessing We Too WereBlessed, Weber Studies 5 (Spring 1988): 6173; D. Michael Quinn, Mor-mon Women Have Had the Priesthood since 1843, in Women and Author-ity: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism, edited by Maxine Hanks (Salt Lake City:Signature Books, 1992), 365410; Jill Mulvay Derr, Janath Russell Cannon,and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, Women of Covenant: The Story of Relief So-ciety (Salt Lake City:Deseret Book, 1992), 4344, 21922; Lester E. Bush Jr.,

Health and Medicine among the Latter-day Saints: Science, Sense, and Scripture

(New York: Crossroad,1993), 8489;Susanna Morrill, Relief Society Birthand Death Rituals: Women at the Gates of Mortality, Journal of MormonHistory 36 (Spring 2010): 12859.+ 5

Jonathan A. Stapley and Kristine Wright, The Forms and thePower: The Development of Mormon Ritual Healing to 1847, Journal ofMormon History 35 (Summer 2009): 4287 traces this evolution in detail. Aslightly revised version is available in Stephen C. Taysom, ed.,Dimensions of

Faith: A Mormon Studies Reader(Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2011).


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explicitly formalized the Church liturgy itself. In this paper, we showhow female ritual healing evolved in context of this history and how it

is a key feature in understanding the development of Latter-day Saintliturgy. Furthermore, we show how these dynamics led to the end offemale administration of healing ritual in the Church.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF FEMALE RITUAL HEALING TO 1847

The roots of female ritual healing are inextricably tied to thefounding communities of Mormon history. Understanding the evolu-tion of female participation in healing rituals from those early begin-

nings provides a window into developing liturgical modalities as wellas the developing milieu of ritual and gender relations. Althoughthere is some evidence that Lucy Mack Smith was known as a healerin the Palmyra community, female administration of Mormon heal-ing rituals emerged during the Kirtland period. While women wereoften the recipients of healing rituals, the primary evidence of earlyfemale ritual administration occurs in the patriarchal blessings be-stowed by Joseph Smith Sr. These blessings, which often identifiedthe individuals spiritualgifts, legitimized the exercise of female heal-

ing during the early 1830s.6++Joseph Smith Sr.s blessings often indi-cated that ritual healing was to be administered within the domesticcircle.7+++However, it is clear that, by the winter of 1835, women werebeginning toconceiveof themselves as fullerparticipants in theritualcommunity. Early Mormons believed in a literal biblical restora-tionism and often had paradigmatic experiences, typified by JosephSmiths interaction with the divine. For example in early Kirtland, Sa-rah Leavitt clearly viewed herself as both able and qualified to receive

and act upon a personal revelation to heal her daughter. An angelicvisitation instructing Leavitt to lay hands on her daughter not onlysanctionedher to act within the limits ofher own conscience, but alsowithin her developing Mormon community.8++++

By 1837, patriarchal blessings specifically instructed women to


++ 6See, e.g., H. Michael Marquardt, comp., Early Patriarchal Blessings ofthe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Smith-PettitFoundation, 2007), 19, 56, 104, 147.+++ 7Ibid., 36, 47, 73, 163.

++++ 8 Juanita L. Pulsipher, ed., History of Sarah Studevant Leavitt(1875), 9, Ms 62, Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, Univer-sity of Utah, Salt Lake City (hereafter Marriott Library).


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administer to thesickby the layingonhands, thecommonform ofad-ministration among Mormon men.9*Notably, early Mormons did notuse consecrated oil or invoke priesthood authority to heal; the earli-est healings in the Church frequently involved laying hands on spe-cific areas of the body. Concomitant with the introduction of anoint-ing as a ritual form in the Kirtland Temple, Mormons anointed ailingregions of the body or areas that were believed to be sources of sick-ness.10**Upuntil this point,women didnot haveaccess to institutional-ized roles in theearly Church, so theirmovement intoritual healing issignificant.11***In these early years, there is no question that Church

leaders viewed the ritual administration by the elders with primacy,but femaleparticipation in ritual healingwas also common. After theSmith family relocated to Far West, Missouri, in 1838, Mary IsabellaHorne later remembered that Lucy Mack Smith participated in thehealing of her daughter: [she] was taken very ill, and her life de-spaired of, in fact it seemed impossible for her to get better. Themother of the Prophet, Mrs. Lucy Smith, came and blessed the child,and said she should live. This was something new in that age, for a

woman to administer to the sick. That same year while on a missionin Maine, Phoebe Woodruff administered to her sick husband, Wil-ford. The apostolic missions appear to have spread the practice of fe-male ritual healing as British women were also anointing the sick by1838.12****

While these instances of female healing illustrate that womens


* 9E.g., the Patriarch commanded one woman: Thou shalt lay thyhands on them and they shall recover. Joseph Smith Sr., Patriarchal Bless-ing to Eda Rogers, 1837, transcript on website, http://timeforitnow.knotsindeed.com/genealogy/NoahRogersEdaHollister.html (accessed Ap-ril21,2009).EditedexcerptalsoavailableinPearson,Daughters ofLight,65.Seealso Marquardt, Early Patriarchal Blessings, 166.** 10Stapley and Wright, The Forms and Power.*** 11Ibid. Besides priesthood offices, men filled virtually all roles in thenascent Church, from clerks to craftsmen.

**** 12Anonymous, A Representative Woman: Mary Isabella Horne,

Womans Exponent 11 (June 15, 1882): 9; Scott G. Kenney, ed., Wilford Wood-ruffs Journal, 18331898, typescript, 9 vols. (Midvale, Utah: SignatureBooks, 198385), 1:235. Joseph Fielding, Diary, December 16, 1838, micro-film of holograph, LDS Church History Library. This theme appears com-mon in the early missions. Addison Pratt also instructed native women to


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participation in healing was becoming normative, the founding ofthe Relief Society coupled with the introduction of the Nauvoo Tem-

ple ceremonies ushered in an expansion of ritual healing, reinforcingthe role of women within Mormon religious rituals. Distinct from theauthority to administer healing rituals, Joseph Smith yearned for hispeople to acquire the charismatic power to heal and the ritual formsto channel that power. Through the promised endowment, Smithsought to fill his people with Gods power, including the power toheal. Furthermore, throughout his life, he adapted the salvific ritualsof his church and used them to focus this power. Church leaders

adapted the Kirtland anointing ceremony, baptism, and the NauvooTemple rites to healing the sick, and women naturally participated inthese ceremonies.13+

After settling in Illinois, Mormon women formed theNauvoo Fe-male Relief Society in March 17, 1842, as an organization to help theneedy and strengthen each other. Women sometimes administered tothe sick in formal settingsas a part of their regular Relief Society meet-ings. This practice apparently caused some controversy; however, Jo-

seph rebuked the detractors on April 28, 1842, according to revela-tion, which he newly preached that day. He stated that it was properfor women to administer to the sick by the laying on of hands and thathealing the sick . . . should follow all that believe, whether male or fe-male.14++Joseph Smithsdefenseof femaleparticipation inhealing ritu-als set a pattern that would continue for the rest of the century. From


anoint the sick during his first mission to the Society Islands in 1846. S.George Ellsworth, ed., The Journals of Addison Pratt (Salt Lake City: Univer-sity of Utah Press, 1990), 29293.+ 13Stapley and Wright, The Forms and the Power; Jonathan A.Stapley and Kristine Wright, They Shall Be Made Whole: A History ofBaptism for Health, Journal of Mormon History 34 (Fall 2008): 69112.++ 14Ibid., April 28, 1842; Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, eds.,The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses

of the Prophet Joseph (Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1980),11419. See also Dean C. Jessee, ed.,Papers of Joseph Smith, 2 vols. (Salt Lake

City: Deseret Book, 198992), 2:37879, and May 1, 1842, 2:379. This posi-tion is later reflected in many sources, e.g., Louisa Barnes Pratts diary,When the Savior said, these signs shall follow them that believe in myname they shall cast out devils, &c, He made no distinction of sexes. S.GeorgeEllsworth, ed.,The History of Louisa BarnesPratt: Mormon Missionary


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this point forward, Church leaders continued to encourage women toexperience the power of the Restoration through healing.

As with the Kirtland Temple, the rituals of the Nauvoo templeliturgy were adapted to healing and other purposes from the earliestmoments, yet this time women were included as full participants.Smiths temple ceremonies were a space where women received anexpanded liturgical authority and administered rituals of salvation.

Joseph Smith organized a quorum or holy order, as a body to me-diate the transmission of the temple ceremonies and both men andwomen were members. Both voted Joseph Smith as president and

both voted on the admission of prospective members. Never beforehad men and women labored so proximately for the latter-day king-dom.15+++The Nauvoo Temple liturgy introduced a greater complexityto healing as Church leaders adapted the salvific rituals of washingand anointing and baptism to healing before the temple was evencompleted. 16++++The prayer circle was used to consecrate oil and, inconjunction with the laying on of hands, to heal the sick.17*The sickwere also washed and anointed for their health.

Although Utah-era Relief Society women claimed that JosephSmith taught women towash and anoint thesickduringhis lifetime,18**

the first example of such a ritual that we have found occurred in De-


Widow and Pioneer(Logan: Utah State University Press, 1998), 345.+++ 15Jonathan A. Stapley, No Uncommon Thing: Collaborative Male-Female Ritual Healing in Mormonism, paper presented at the MormonHistory Association annual meeting, May 2009, Springfield, Ill., in our pos-session.++++ 16Stapley and Wright, The Forms and the Powers.* 17Stanley B. Kimball, ed., On the Potters Wheel: The Diaries of Heber C.

Kimball(Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1987), 123, 125, 129; George D.Smith, ed., An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton (Salt LakeCity: SignatureBooks, 1995),218, 221; SamuelW. Richards,Diary, Septem-ber 12, 1846, microfilm of holograph, Perry Special Collections. Note thatmany of these accounts involve collaborative male-female healing.** 18See, e.g., Richards, Womans Thought and Womans Work, 78;

General Relief Society Office Minutes, August 7, 1923, Washing andAnointing Blessing Texts, ca. 1923, Relief Society Washing and AnointingFile, CR 11 304, Box 1, fd. 2; Relief Society General Board, Minutes, Janu-ary 2, 1929, microfilm of typescript, CR 11 10. See also Elizabeth Whitney,A Leaf from an Autobiography, Womans Exponent 7 (November 15,


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cember 1845. (See below.) Washing and anointing ritual texts, com-mitted to writing during the twentieth century, show how adminis-

trants alternately washed and anointed various parts of the body, pro-nouncing a blessing upon each of them, and then sealed the ritual bythe laying on of hands.19***Essentially a healing litany, the practice ofwashing and anointing for health shares a liturgical homology to theMormontemple rituals. Though these written patterns donot includelanguage from the temple initiatory ritual,20****they share a similar over-all patternofadministration,which isalso reflected inother aspects ofnineteenth-century temple worship. For example, temple dedicatory

prayers during the same era consecrated exhaustive lists of templeconstructions and fixtures.21+

The first documented example of washing and anointing forhealth that we have found highlights how, as women participated intemple ordinances, they also participated in the new healing rituals,thus beginning an era of collaborative healing: President Young andH. C. Kimball, assisted by their wives and Sister Whitney, washed and


1878):91;Anonymous,InMemoriam, Womans Exponent 8 (June 1,1879):251. In Utah, Zina D. H. Young wrote: Blessings [line break] I have prac-ticed much with my Sister Presendia Kimball while in Nauvoo & ever since.before Joseph Smiths death He blest sisters to bless the Sick. Memoran-dum, unpaginated entry, Zina Card Brown Family Collection, MS 4780,Box 1, fd. 15.*** 19Washing and anointing blessing, circa 1906, Cannonville Relief So-ciety Record, 12630, microfilm of manuscript, LR 1371 22, cf., PanguitchStake, mimeograph washing and anointing text, CR 11 304, Box 1, fd. 2;Washing and anointing blessings, circa 1909, Oakley, Idaho, 2nd Ward Re-lief Society, Minute Book, 190109, 19598, LR 6360 14, microfilm ofmanuscript; Washing and anointing blessing texts, ca. 1923, typescripts,Relief Society Washing and Anointing File, CR 11 304, Box 1, fd. 2.**** 20In the late nineteenth century, Church leaders persistently warnedwomen against incorporating temple ritual language into their healingrites. See, e.g., Relief Society General Board, Minutes, October 4, 1895.+ 21On the form of temple dedications see Samuel Brown, A SacredCode: Mormon Temple Dedications, 18362000, Journal of Mormon His-

tory 32 (Summer 2006): 18081. For example, when Heber C. Kimballdedicated the Endowment House, he named in his prayer evry roomfrom top to bottom evry wall & material Adobies sand clay stone Limefrom the foundation to the top. Kenney, Wilford Woodruffs Journal,4:316, May 5, 1855.


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anointed for theirhealth their three little children.22++Primarily facili-tated by participation in the temple quorum, men and women la-bored together to administer healing rituals.23+++Underscoring the im-portance of such unity, Apostle George A. Smith preached to the ini-tiated in the temple: We are now different from what we were beforewe entered into this quorum. . . . When a man and his wife are unitedin feeling, and act in union, I believe they can hold their children byprayer and faith andwill not be obliged to give themupto death untilthey are fourscore years old.24++++Church leaders modeled and encour-aged collaborative healing.

Like hispredecessor, BrighamYoungadvocated womens partic-ipation in healing rituals. Affirming the practice at an April 1844Nauvoo general conference, he declared, I want a Wife that can takecare of my chi[ldre]n when I am awaywho can praylay on handsanoint with oil & baff le the enemy.25*Youngs early support of femaleritual healing and his example in collaborative healing functioned to


++ 22Helen Mar Kimball, Scenes in Nauvoo, and Incidents from H. C.Kimballs Journal, Womans Exponent 12 (August 15, 1883): 42. Note thatthis serialized episode is an excerpt from the Heber C. Kimball Diary (De-cember28, 1845) kept byWilliam Clayton and not included in Smith,An In-timate Chronicle. See also William Clayton, Diary, kept for Heber C. Kim-ball, in Devery S. Anderson and Gary James Bergera, eds., The Nauvoo En-dowment Companies, 18451846: A Documentary History (Salt Lake City: Sig-nature Books, 2005), 210. Two days later, one of these children, BrighamWillard C. Kimball, was included in the temple prayer because of contin-ued illness. Ibid., 233. There may be earlier extant accounts of washing andanointing for health that we did not find in our research.

+++ 23See, e.g., Willard Richards, Diary, June 26 and July 9, 1845, holo-graph, in Richard E. Turley, ed., Selected Collections from the Archives of theChurch of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,2 vols., DVD (Provo, Utah: Brigham

Young University Press, [Dec. 2002], 1:31; Kimball, On the Potters Wheel,105.++++ 24Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 221, December 21, 1845.

* 25Thomas Bullockaccount of BrighamYoung sermon, Special Elders

Meeting, April 9, 1844, in Church Historians Office, General Church Min-utes, 18391877, Selected Collections, 1:18. The edited speech is included inJoseph Smithet al.,History of the Church of JesusChrist ofLatter-day Saints,ed-ited by B. H. Roberts, 7 vols., 2d ed. rev. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book,1948), 6:322.


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subvert theprevalent notion ofseparate spheres within therealmofhealinga notable shift that moved with Church members as they re-

located. Collaborative healing was common on the trail west. PattySessions administered to the sick in Winter Quarters with her hus-band.26**Eliza R. Snow participated in healing rituals with men andwomen at blessing meetings, and Hosea Stout gathered endowedmen and women to dress in their temple robes and administer to hisdying son according to the Holy order.27***In conjunction with col-laborativehealing, a distinctive female healing culture grew up along-side these unified administrations. Growing out of female isolation

from husbands in the vanguard company, Mormon Battalion, andother colonization efforts, and potentially from Victorian ideas ofpropriety, women frequently administered for each others healingand comfort. As memorialized in the Womans Exponent, women inUtah described the post-Nauvoo wives of Heber C. Kimball:

Theyusedoften tomeetand praytogetherand othersofthe familyand neighbors would gather in. Theyweremuchexercised in their feel-ings for the pioneers who had gone out into a new and undiscoveredcountry, exposed to the perils of a savage wilderness. It was a time of

great anxiety. . . the settlementalmostdeserted.The Sisters had greaterneed to draw near the Lord, and the manifestations of his goodnessand power were indeed marvelous, especially in healing the sick.28****

Ritual exercise at times of critical life events such as miscar-riages, births, and illness bound women together and further intensi-fied the kinship bonds often forged from polygamous unions. As


** 26Donna Toland Smart, ed., Mormon Midwife: The 18461888 Diariesof Patty Bartlett Sessions (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1997), 75, 78,180, 208.*** 27Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, ed., The Personal Writings of Eliza

Roxcy Snow (1995; rpt., Logan: Utah State University Press, 2000), 180;Juanita Brooks, ed., On the Mormon Frontier: The Diaries of Hosea Stout,2vols.(Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1964), 1:17071.**** 28Anonymous, A Venerable Woman: Presendia Lathrop Kimball,Womans Exponent 12 (June 1, 1883): 2. For examples of later language re-

garding Victorian propriety, see Joseph E. Taylor, Sermon, Minutes ofHomeMissionary Meeting, January 30, 1884, Salt Lake Stake,General Min-utes, microfilm of manuscript, LR 604; Lillie Fairbanks, Letter to John B.Fairbanks, May 29, 1891, Payson, Utah, microfilm of holograph, JohnBoylston Fairbanks, Papers, MS 11085.


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Lucy Meserve Smith described washing and anointing her sister wifeSarah Ann Libby Smith along with two other plural wives and afriend, Bathsheba said when she and Zina and Hannah [Maria LibbySmith]and I layedourhands onher she felt as though she was prayingoveran infant we prayed with ourright handuplifted to the mosthighand we all felt the blessing of the holy spirit. Zina said there was a un-ion of faith.29+

The period of exodus along the Western trail functioned totrain Mormons in their expanded healing liturgy. All of the varioushealing rituals wereprevalent, and this activityprovided both a mean-

ingful expression of faith and deepened communal ties. Not only didwomenadminister towomen, but they alsooccasionally administeredto men; and men and women administered together. By the time oftheir arrival in the Great Basin, Mormon women were establishedand potent healers, being recognized as such by lay member andGeneral Authority alike.

NINETEENTH-CENTURY WOMEN

AND THE UTAH HEALING LITURGY

The body of rituals formulated before the Latter-day Saints ar-rival in the Great Basin formed the core of healing activities amongLDS womento the modern era; however, there was a distinct evolutioninpractice in Utah. Beyond the pre-Utah rites, Mormon women beganadministering a specific washing and anointing ritual for expectantmothers. Additionally, following the pattern set by Joseph Smith, Mor-mon temples were locations for special healing; and female as well asmale temple workers regularly administered healing rituals to patrons.

In all of these ritual modes, women frequently administered with men,uniting in faith for the physical restoration of their people.In the immediate post-Nauvoo era, cases of blessings without

the use of oil are extant.30++However, women, across the world wher-ever the Church was located, more commonly anointed the sick withoil that had been consecrated for that purpose. In 1849, the Millen-


+ 29Lucy Meserve Smith, Letter to George A. Smith, April 19, 1851,

George A. Smith Papers, in Selected Collections, 1:33. For more on U.S. ante-bellum distinctive female culture see Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, The Fe-male World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nine-teenth-Century America, Signs 1 (Autumn 1975): 129.++ 30See, e.g., Sarah Beriah Fiske Allen Ricks, who wrote that she re-


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nial Starprinted a letter from Briton Eliza Jane Merrick, describinghow she anointed and healed a young member of her family.31+++Louisa

BarnesPratt, who leftwith her husband ona mission to the Society Is-lands (Tahiti) in 1850, described how the native inhabitants wouldfrequently bring their young children to me when they were sick tohave me anoint them, give them oil inwardly, and lay my hands uponthem in the name of the Lord.32++++Drinking consecrated oil was also acommon Mormon practice into the twentieth century. Individualslikewise continued the practice of anointing the sick on the area of af-fliction. For example, one woman anointed her sons throat and

stomach and gave him oil inwardly when he had a bad cold and an-other anointed her childs teeth in the name of Jesus.33*Both menand women engaged in this practice, though anointing the head onlywas also common.

After the 1840s, washing the sick with water was commonlyviewed as therapeutic in the United States,34**anda fewMormon heal-ing accounts are ambiguous about whether participants ritually wash-ed and anointed or simply cleaned and then ritually anointed the


buked thecholera of a Mormon co-worker in St. Louis in 1849. Autobiogra-phy (181952), 13-14, microfilm of typescript. See also Smart,Mormon Mid-wife, 112, 119, 164, among many others.+++ 31Eliza Jane Merrick, Letter to Brother Booth, Windsor, England,

June 6, 1849, Millennial Star11 (July 1, 1849): 205.++++ 32Ellsworth, The History of Louisa Barnes Pratt, 128. See also ibid., 74,87, 14445, 15355, 212, 34546; E.S.P.C., In Memoriam, Womans Expo-nent 9 (October 15, 1880): 77.* 33Edward Leo Lyman, Susan Ward Payne, and S. George Ellsworth,eds., No Place to Call Home: The 18071857 Life Writings of Caroline BarnesCrosby, Chronicler of Outlying Mormon Communities (Logan: Utah State Uni-versity Press, 2005), 44142. Melissa Lambert Milewski, ed.,Before the Mani-

festo: The Life Writings of Mary Lois Walker Morris (Logan: Utah State Univer-sity Press, 2007), 313. For other ritual healings with oil in the same volume,see pp. 208, 226, 31920, 32930, 371, 376,401, 431,432, 442, 453, 471.Ex-amplesofwashingand anointing thesickare onpp. 236,24748, 267,269.** 34Cold water cure or hydrotherapy was introduced in the eastern

United States in the 1840s as a popular treatment for the sick. Susan E.Cayleff, Wash and Be Healed: The Water-Cure Movement and Womens Health(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987); Jane B. Donegan, Hydro-

pathic Highway to Health: WomenandWater-Cure in Antebellum America (NewYork: Greenwood Press, 1986). While some Mormons were aware of


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sick.35***There is no question, however, that a formal washing andanointing ritual was commonly employed after the Nauvoo Templeceremonies became available to the body of the Church during thewinter of 184546. During the exodus to the West, men performedmost of the documented instances of washing and anointing forhealth.36****Although several retrospective accounts of women washingand anointing the sick during this period are extant,37+it is not untilthe Utah period that women regularly and contemporaneously de-scribe washings and anointings. While men continued to wash andanoint the sick during the Utah period, these accounts are less com-

mon.38++

Women, by contrast, frequently employed the ritual into thetwentieth century.In 1849 Patty Sessions, began recording instances of washing


hydrotherapy, there is very little evidence of its practice. Eliza R. Snow, forexample, took a daily cold-water bath. Jill Mulvay Derr and Matthew J.Grow, Letters on Mormon Polygamy and Progeny: Eliza R. Snow and Mar-tin Luther Holbrook, 18661869,BYU Studies 48,no.2(2009):144note16.*** 35William France, Surgeon, Remarks on the Cholera, &c., Deseret

News, September 26, 1855, 228, wrote: As to the treatment of this disease,nothing is more simple; first wash the body clean and then administer theordinance of anointing and laying on of hands, keeping the patient per-fectly still and abstaining from all kinds of food or even drink. For exam-ples of ambiguous administrations, see Willard Snow, Foreign Correspon-dence,extractsofa letter toErastus Snow, Copenhagen, July9,1852,Deseret

News, November 6, 1852, 102; Jesse Bennett, Diary, November 5, 1891, digi-tal copy of holograph, Perry Special Collections. The washing and anoint-ing of feet, knees, and joints during the Mormon Battalion march is an-otherexample of ambiguous administration.See, e.g., Levi Ward Hancock,

Journal, February 6, 12, and 19, 1847, microfilm of holograph; AzariahSmith, Diary, February 18, 1847, microfilm of holograph.**** 36Stapley and Wright, The Forms and the Power, 81.

+ 37Lyman, Payne, andEllsworth,No Place to Call Home, 6465; EdwardW. Tullidge, The Women of Mormondom (New York: Tullidge & Crandall,1877), 169; Ann Alice Kimball, Journal, in Heber C. Kimball and Ann AliceGheen (N.p.: Heber C. Kimball Family Association, 1992), 23.++ 38

See, e.g., John Lyman Smith, Diary, June 10, 1855, digital copy ofholograph, Perry Special Collections; Donald G. Godfrey and Rebecca S.Martineau-McCarty, eds., An Uncommon Common Pioneer: The Journals of

James Henry Martineau, 18281918 (Provo, Utah: BYU Religious StudiesCenter, 2008),44;Robert Glass Cleland andJuanitaBrooks, eds.,A Mormon


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and anointing the sick in her diary, which quickly became saturatedwith similar, often succinct accounts. For example, on August 14,

1849, she wrote, went and washed and an [sic] anointed Sister Gates& laid hands on her.39+++That same year, Louisa Barnes Pratt, in theSociety Islands, washed and anointed a sick boy who was brought toher.40++++Writing decades later, Mary Ann Burnham Freeze recorded inher diary: I have been with Sister E[llis]. Shipp, to wash and annoint,Mrs Linie felt, who is very low with lung fever, but she seemed muchrelieved when we got through, could breathe easier.41*

Though accounts of women administering healing rituals to

men are extant, the most frequently recorded recipients of femalehealing rituals were women themselves, with children also being reg-ular beneficiaries. Moreover, as Joseph Smith had reportedly done inNauvoo,42**Willard Richards called and set apart women to act asmidwives and also administering to the sick and afflicted and setthem apart for this very office and calling, and blest them with power


Chronicle: The Diaries of John D. Lee, 18481876, 2 vols. (San Marino, Calif.:Huntington Library, 2003), 1:221; Thomas Searles Terry, Diary, July 14,1857; Donald G. Godfrey and Kenneth W. Godfrey, eds., The Diaries ofCharles Ora Card: The Utah Years, 18711886(Provo, Utah: BYU ReligiousStudies Center, 2006), 135; Donald G. Godfrey and Brigham Y. Card, eds.,The Diaries of Charles Ora Card: The Canadian Years 18861903 (Salt LakeCity: University of Utah Press, 1993), 194, 196; L. W. Macfarlane, Yours Sin-cerely, John M. Macfarlane (Salt Lake City: L. W. Macfarlane, M.D., 1980),277;Kym Ney, ed.,Allen RussellAutobiography and Journal,July1,1894,June10, 15, 17 and 27, 1896, April 2, 1905, and March22, 1907, typescript (N.p.:Russell Family, n.d.), holograph in possession of Brandon Gull; [Joseph F,Smith], Sermon at the Funeral of Joseph H. Grant, Editors Table, Im-

provement Era 21 (February 1918): 354.+++ 39Smart, Mormon Midwife, 134. See also, pp. 164, 176, 191, 194, 196,198, 203, 215, 242. Sessions was a polygamous widow of Joseph Smith,member of the nascent Board of Health, and a renowned midwife.

++++ 40Ellsworth, The History of Louisa Barnes Pratt, 154.* 41Mary Ann Freeze, Diary, June 14, 1875; see also, e.g., Zina D. H.

Young, Diary, July 7, 1855, microfilm of holograph.** 42

Mary H. Duncan and Relva Booth Ross, Set Apart by the ProphetJoseph Smith, in Our Pioneer Heritage, compiled by Kate B. Carter, 20 vols.(Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 195877), 6:42632. Smithalso apparently set apart women to administer to the sick. Elizabeth Whit-ney, A Leaf from an Autobiography, Womans Exponent 7 (November 15,


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to officiate in thatcapacity as handmaids of the Lord.43***As maternitycomplicated female health and as women were frequently the healthcare providers during pregnancy and labor (among other times), it isno surprise that women blessed their pregnant sisters for safe deliver-ies and also blessed women who desired children with fertility. Overtime, LDS women developed a specific washing and anointing ritualfor these cases, which quickly became normative. In journals andother records, this ritual is commonly called washing and anointingfor confinement.

Though the specific evolutionary chronology is ambiguous, ac-

counts suggest that theconfinement ritual had been formalizedby the1880sperhaps as early as the late 1870s. For example in 1878, LouisaGreene Richards wrote in her diary, Sister E. R. Snow, Zina D. Youngand E. B. Wells have been to see me today, and to wash, anoint andbless me, preparatory to my approaching confinement.44****Five yearslaterZinaD. H. Young spoke onwashingand anointing to a Logan Re-lief Society conference: I wish to speak of the great privilege given usto wash and anoint the sick and suffering of our sex. I would counsel

every one who expects to become a Mother to have this ordinance ad-ministered by some good faithful sisters. She then gave instructionson the procedure for the rituals.45+The language of these accountssuggest that, during this time, there was not a specific ritual for expec-


1878):91;Anonymous, InMemoriam[DianthaMorleyBillings],WomansExponent 8 (June 1, 1879):251. See also [Eunice Snow], A Sketchof the Lifeof Eunice Snow, Womans Exponent 39 (September 1, 1910): 22; Kate B.Carter, comp., Ann Green Carling: Herb Doctor, in Heart Throbs of theWest, 12 vols. (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 193951), 3:137.We thank Jill Mulvay Derr for bringing several of these examples to our at-tention. Claire Noall, Medicine among Early Mormons, Western Folklore18 (April, 1959): 161, claimed without documentation that Smith set apartseveral others. All of these accounts are retrospective.*** 43Anonymous, A Venerable Woman: Presendia Lathrop Kimball,Continued, Womans Exponent 12 (October 15, 1883): 75. See also CarrelHilton Sheldon, Pioneer Midwives, in Mormon Sisters, 4366.**** 44

Louisa Lula Greene Richards, Journal, June 9, 1878, microfilm ofholograph, MS 6554, 27.

+ 45Relief Society Conference, Logan Tabernacle, Logan Utah CacheStake, Relief Society Minutes and Records, September 11, 1886, microfilmof manuscript, LR 1280 14. Unfortunately, the secretary did not record the


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tant mothers; soon thereafter, however, specific accounts becamecommonplace. As with other rituals, washings and anointings for con-

finement were performed wherever Mormons located.46++Washingsand anointing for confinement shared the same ritual form as wash-ings and anointing for health, where different parts of the body weresequentially washed, anointed, and blessed. The confinement ritualdiffered by adding a relevant blessing for the parts of the body neces-sary for safe delivery and breast-feeding the infant.47+++These blessingsfor safe and successful pregnancies were deeply communal, with fam-ily and close friends often participating in the administrations.

In 1888, Church President Wilford Woodruff wrote to WomansExponent editor Emmeline B. Wells in response to several questions re-lating to healing ritual administration: I imagine from your questionthat you referto a practicethat has grownupamong the sisters ofwash-ing and anointing sisters who are approaching their confinement. . . .There isnoimpropriety insisters washing and anointing their sisters inthis way under the circumstances you describe.48++++Wellss uncertaintylikely arose from the ritual homology between the confinement bless-

ings and the temple blessings. That many Latter-day Saint women re-ceived these same healing rituals in the temples likely added to her un-certainty. Later that same year and in response to the support of Apos-tle Franklin D. Richards, Wells published an editorial reiterating theimportance of Joseph Smiths April 28, 1842, sermon and pointing to


details of her instructions.++ 46E.g., Libbie Noall traveled with her missionary husband to Hawaiiand became the Relief Society president where she frequently ritually ad-ministered to women in confinement. Matthew Noall, To My Children: An

Autobiographical Sketch (Salt Lake City: Utah Printing, 1947), 4647.+++ 47For examples of confinement blessings, see note 19, containing ref-erences to texts of blessings in Cannonville, Utah, andOakley, Idaho, ReliefSociety ward minutes as well as texts generated in the General Relief Soci-ety office. For examples of washing and anointing for health, see Washingand anointing blessing texts, ca. 1923, Relief Society Washing and Anoint-ing File, CR 11 304, Box 1, fd. 2; Anna Fullmer Griffiths (190541), Diary,

March20, 1926, microfilm ofholograph.See also AbrahamH. Cannon, Di-ary, 187995, October 2, 1895, photocopy of holograph, Perry Special Col-lections.++++ 48Wilford Woodruff, Letter to Emmeline B. Wells, April 27, 1888,First Presidency Letterpress, microfilm of holograph.


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several published sources.49*

In Nauvoo, Joseph Smith built the Nauvoo Temple as a place ofphysical healing, among other functions; and in it after Josephsdeath, Brigham Young administered to the sick daily.50**Even thoughthe complete Mormon healing liturgy was available outside of thetemple, Latter-day Saints in Utah conserved Smiths vision. As a re-sult, the Endowment House and, later, the temples (the first Utahtemple, inSt. George, was dedicated in1877) served as loci for specialhealing, though the rituals performed there were not different fromthose outside of the temples.51***Both men and women administered

healing rituals in the temples, and the temple acted as an anchor forfemale ritual healing over time.52****Testimonials printed in the YoungWomans Journalrecountedseveral miraculous healingsperformed bywomen in the Endowment House and later temples, noting, Howmany times the sick and suffering have come upon beds to that tem-ple and at once Sister [Lucy Bigelow] Young would be called to takethe aff licted one under her immediate charge as all knew the mightypower she had gained through long years of fastings and prayers in


* 49[Emmeline B. Wells], Editorial Note, Womans Exponent 17 (Sep-tember 1, 1888): 52.

** 50Stapley and Wright, The Forms and the Power; Stapley andWright, They Shall Be Made Whole. See also Brigham Young, Office

Journal, July 12,1845,photocopy of holograph, Brigham YoungPapers, MS0566, Marriott Library. Our thanks to John Turner for sharing this refer-ence.*** 51Stapley and Wright, They Shall Be Made Whole, 69112, esp.8895.**** 52For some examples of healing rituals in the temple besides thosecited herein, see also Franklin D. Richards, Sermon, February 12, 1893, inBrian H. Stuy, comp. and ed., Collected Discourses Delivered by Wilford Wood-ruff, His Two Counselors, the Twelve Apostles, and Others, 18861889, 5 vols.(Sandy, Utah: BHS Publishing, 198792), 3:234; Rachel Elizabeth PyneSmart, Autobiography (18701930), 45, microfilm of typescript; LucindaHaws Holdaway, Biographical Sketch of Lucida Haws Holdaway (Provo, Utah:

N.pub., n.d.), 18; Barbara Reed Clark, ed., A History of John BurnsideFarnes and Ann Isacke, 1314, in Margie Ean Farnes Stevens, June FarnesStewart and Wanda Farnes Virden, comps., Farnes Family HistoryBookThree (N.p.: N.pub., December 1999), 14546; Temple Manifestations,

Millennial Star57 (January 24, 1895): 5960.


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the exercise of her special gift.53+

Often individuals participated in several different healing ritu-

als during a single trip to the temple. Helen Mar WhitneyKimball de-scribed one of her daughters temple experiences; she was baptizedin the Manti Temple 7 times for her health once for remission ofsinsthen ^washed &^ anointed that she might obtain the desire ofher heartwas promised that she should. Was also administered to bythe brethren.54++When another daughter was pregnant, Helen Kim-ball recorded that Christiana Pyper and Alvus Patterson, both re-nownedhealers,55+++administered toheroutsideof the temple:[Lillie]

was washed and anointed by Sister Pyper preparatory to her confine-ment. Bro P. called & she asked him to be mouth in blessing Gen [an-other daughter]. I asked them to administer to L. which they did &also tomeproposed by SisterPyper.56++++Though they were not kin re-lations, Pyper and Patterson frequently healed together; often Pyperanointed and Patterson confirmed the ritual.57*Continuing on fromcooperative practices from the Nauvoo era, collaborative male-fe-


+ 53Anonymous, Sketch of the Labors of Sister Lucy B. Young in theTemples, Young Womans Journal4 (April 1893): 298300; Anonymous,Sketch of Sister Bathsheba Smith: Worker in the Endowment House,Young Womans Journal4 (April 1893): 29596.++ 54Charles M. Hatch and Todd M. Compton, eds., A Widows Tale: The18841896 Diary of Helen Mar Kimball Whitney (Logan: Utah State Univer-sity Press, 2003), 489. For a similar battery of temple healing rituals, seeibid., 2045. Whitneys diary contains scores of female ritual healing ac-counts. For baptism for health, see Stapley and Wright, They Shall BeMade Whole.

+++ 55Both prominent healers in their own right, Pyper and Pattersonshared a family friendship and even received patriarchal blessings on thesameday. Hewaspromisedtohave powerequal to Elijah ofold being ablego from settlement to settlement healing the sick. She was blessed to ad-minister to the sick and they shall be healed instantly under thy hands.Charles W. Hyde, Patriarchal blessing to Alvicous H. Patterson, February18, 1888, andCharles W. Hyde,Patriarchal blessing to Christiana DollingerPyper, February 18, 1888, in George D. Pyper Papers, MS 1, Box 9, fd. 17,Marriot Library.++++ 56Hatch and Compton, A Widows Tale, 402.* 57See, e.g., Christiana D. Pyper, Accounts of Administration to theSick, 1888and 1891,manuscript, GeorgeD.Pyper Papers, MS 1,Box 2, fd.


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male ritual healing remained common,58**with family members fre-quently joining to administer healing rituals.59***For example, WilfordWoodruff described the healing of Margaret Smoot, who had experi-enced paralysis: Mrs Phebe W Woodruff Anointed her & A O.Smoot Wm. Smoot & my self laid hands upon her And I WilfordWoodruffBlessed her and rebukedher Disease and her speechbeganto Come to her and she was some better.60****

UTAH HEALING CULTURE

For Mormon women, the second half of the nineteenth cen-tury was a period where the transmission of ritual knowledge as wellas the consolidation of its performance within the public and pri-vate spheres bolstered both the folk and formal liturgical modali-ties. Throughout the development of the Relief Society from the1850s, female healing served as a bridge of continuity that wouldconnect women to their Nauvoo origins, to the temple, and to eachother. The women at the core of the healing culture of nineteenth-


19, Marriot Library; Christiana D. Pyper, Diary, November 9 and 10, 1888,George D.Pyper Papers, MS 1, Box 6, fd. 1, Marriot Library; Joseph Argyle,

Journal, 92, microfilm of holograph, internally paginated; Margaret R.Salmon, My StoryMargaret Robertson Salmon in Our Pioneer Heritage11:268. There are also many extant accounts of them healing separately.** 58While collaborative male-female ritual healings were common, it isalso evident that some men preferred to administer with other men. OliverHuntington wrote in his journal after administering to his daughter-in-law,Icalled for my wife as I generally do to lay onhands with me in the absenceof other elders. Oliver B. Huntington, Diary, November 28, 1886, 12425,holograph, Perry Special Collections. Huntington hada preferred mode ofadministering to the sick, patterned after the prayer circle. Ibid., January27, 1887, 15961.

*** 59See, e.g., Smart, Mormon Midwife, 179, 169; Scott H. Partridge, ed.,Eliza Maria Partridge Journal(Provo, Utah: Grandin Book, 2003), 128;Hatch and Compton, A Widows Tale, 71, 202, 301, 344; Godfrey andGodfrey, The Diaries of Charles Ora Card, 16768; Jennifer Moulton Hansen,

ed.,Letters of Catharine Cottam Romney, Plural Wife (Urbana: University of Il-linois Press, 1992), 238.

**** 60Kenney, Wilford Woodruffs Journal, 8:172. For an example of Phoebeadministering to Wilford with others, see 7:156. See also George A. Smith,Diary, January 9, 1873, MS 1322, Box 3, fd. 1, Selected Collections, 1:32.


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century Utah invoked the power and authority to heal that JosephSmith had recognized and validated at the early Relief Society meet-

ings. These women, whose formative organizational and spiritualexperiences occurred in Nauvoo and Winter Quarters, sought tostrengthen female ritual participation within the community, andthe Church hierarchy approved of their efforts. Through the indi-vidual and organizational instruction of Relief Society leaders, aswell as the mentoring of Mormon women which occurred throughactive ritual participation, sermons, letters and other publications,female healing entered a period of growth and intensification, cul-

minating in the Relief Society Jubilee in 1892.Church leadership in the early Utah period continued to up-hold and even expand the healing authority of women.61+Whenapostles edited the Manuscript History of the Church during the1850s, they made some editorial changes to Joseph Smiths ReliefSociety sermons. However, Smiths April 28, 1842, revelation to theRelief Society outlining womens qualification to heal and bless thesick remained intact.62++Apostles and other Church leaders also setwomen apart to wash, anoint, and, in one example, to wait upon

her sex in sickness.63


+ 61See, e.g., Ezra T. Benson, General Conference Address, Salt LakeCity, October 6, 1852,Millennial Star15 (February 26, 1853): 130. For otherexamples of General Authority support of female ritual healing not else-where cited in this paper, see Logan Utah Cache Stake, Relief Society, Min-utes and Records, Vol. 1, June 18, 1868, and August 2, 1869, microfilm ofmanuscript, LR 1280 14; Orson Pratt, November 2, 1873, Journal of Dis-courses, 16:291; Brigham Young, August 31, 1875, Journal of Discourses,18:71; John Taylor, Remarks, in Report of the Dedication of the KaysvilleRelief Society House, Nov. 12, 1876, Womans Exponent 5 (March 1, 1877):14849; [George Q. Cannon], Editorial Thoughts, Juvenile Instructor17(August 1, 1879): 174.++ 62Historians in Nauvoo used thehighlyabbreviated Book of theLawof the Lord for the entry, although they added the minutes of the FemaleRelief Society of Nauvoo to the addendum. Manuscript History of theChurch, April 28, 1842, 3:1326; Addendum 3:2627, 38-43, in Selected Col-

lections, 1:1. When historians in Utah prepared and published JosephSmiths History, they included the edited minutes. Manuscript History ofthe Church, April 28, 1842, 10:46871, Selected Collections, 1:2; History of

Joseph Smith, Deseret News, September 19, 1855, 21718. Joseph Smithsaddresses to theReliefSociety as edited during this periodwere later edited


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As the few, small Relief Society groups sprang up during the1850s to meet local needs and perform acts of charity, they endorsedfemale authority and power to heal and care for the sick and preg-nant. Theminutes fromthe formationmeeting ofone suchgroupun-der priesthood direction in Cedar City, Utah, illustrates how healingrituals had evolved as well as the central role they played in womenleaders roles:+++

President Isaac C. Haight and John M Higbee then blessed LydiaHopkins as President of the Institution and as a midwife to the sisters,with the power to wash and anoint the sick, and of laying on of hands.

Blessed Anabella Haight as her first Counsellor, and Rachel Whittakeras her second Counsellor, to wash, anoint, and lay hands on the sick.Also blessed Francess Willis, as a midwife, to have power to wash,anoint, and lay on hands, for the recovery of the sick.64++++

Church leaders in the Utah Territory continued to endorse womensauthority to heal and the giftsof the Spirit remained primarily ungen-dered in Mormon discourse.

As they had in Kirtland, in Nauvoo, and on the trail west, patri-

archs continued to encourage female participation in the healing lit-urgy. The Martineau family is an example of the recognition of suchblessings. On January 23, 1857, Patriarch William Cazier of Nephi,


a second time and published in History of the Church, vols. 4 and 6 (consultindex under Relief Society, Female). See also Jill Mulvay Derr and CarolCornwall Madsen, Preserving the Record and Memory of the Female Re-lief Society of Nauvoo, 18421892,Journal of Mormon History 35 (Summer2009): 9294.

+++ 63See, e.g., L. W., Death of a Heroine, Womans Exponent 20(March 1, 1892): 127; Bathsheba W. Bigler Smith, Record Book of BathshebaW. Smith (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Library, 1970), 7172;Ellsworth, The History of Louisa Barnes Pratt, 212; Kenney, Wilford Wood-ruffs Journal, 6:342, 7:153; Various, Obituaries, Womans Exponent 9(June 1, 1880): 4; Lillie Fairbanks, Letter to John B. Fairbanks, May 29,1891, Payson, Utah, microfilm of holograph in John Boylston FairbanksPapers, MS 11085.++++ 64

Minutes of theFemale Benevolent Societyof CedarCity, November20, 1856, microfilm of manuscript, LR 1514 22. For a meeting in 1855where women were organized and set apart to nurse and administer to thesick, see Godfrey and Martineau-McCarty, An Uncommon Common Pioneer,4041.


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Utah, blessed Susan Julia Sherman Martineau: Thou shalt have thegift of healing, and administer to the aff licted of thy family, in the ab-

sence of thy husband, and they shall be healed. A different patriarchgave another Martineau wife, Susan Elvira, a similar blessing twoyears later: We seal upon thee the blessings of lifethe gift to rebukedisease...65*Later, Patriarch Benjamin Johnson of Tempe, Arizona,blessed Susan Elvira that health and peace shall drop from the endsof thy fingers, and consolation and Comfort from thy lips. We ordainthee and set theeapart as a Nurse and as a Midwife, and thou shalt ad-minister peace and comfort to the aff licted. The sick shall rise up at

thy touch, and sickness and death shall flee away from thy pres-ence.66**

Patty Sessionss experience highlights the inf luence that patri-archs wielded in the healing sphere. Having been tutored in healingritual in Nauvoo and being one of the most active documented heal-ers for decades, she wrote in her diary that Patriarch Charles Hydelaid his hands uponmy headblessed meand tomy surprise ordainedme to lay hands on the sick.67***Over the next years, Sessions regularlyadministeredas she had before; but uponbeing called to minister toawoman who had a necrotic breast tumor, she wrote: I felt very curi-ous I feel as though I must lay hands onher. I never felt sobefore with-out being called on to do it. She said []well do it[.] I knew I had beenordained to to [sic] lay hands on the sick & set apart to do that. Shehad been washed clean & I anointed her gave her some oil to take &then laid hands on her. I told her she would get well if she would be-lieve & not daught it. We put on a cloth wet in oil. She got up & wentout door said there was no pain in it at all.68****The bestowal of bless-

ings by patriarchs giving women healingpower and directing them to


* 65William Cazier, Patriarchal blessing for Susan Julia Sherman Mart-ineau, January 23, 1857, in Godfrey and Martineau-McCarty,An UncommonCommon Pioneer, 66; Isaac Morley, patriarchal blessing for Susan ElviraMartineau, October 17, 1859, ibid., 104.** 66Benjamin F. Johnson, Blessing and ordination of Susan E. J.Martineau, February 25, 1890, ibid., 36365.*** 67Smart, Mormon Midwife, 349. For a similar example of a patriarchsetting apart a woman who was already a well-established healer, see Hatchand Compton, A Widows Tale, 471.**** 68Smart, A Mormon Midwife, 36263.


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administer to the sick endured into the twentieth century.69+

After Brigham Young counseledwomen toreestablish Relief So-cietyunder thedirectionof local bishops between 1867and 1868, themandate to heal and bless the sick maintained a position of notewor-thy importance. When Brigham Young asked Eliza R. Snow to headup the work of reorganizing the Relief Society at this time, she begantraveling throughout the Utah Territory teaching women about itsstructure, purpose, and history. This education also included impart-ing specific instructions regarding the healing rituals.70++Snow be-came the foremost interpreter of Joseph Smiths discourses to the Re-

lief Society, and the manuscript minutes of theNauvoo Female ReliefSociety remained primarily in her possession until her death in1887.71+++As Brigham Young encouraged the spread of the womens or-ganization, he continued to encourage female healing, at one pointasking, in 1869: Whydoyou not live soas to rebuke disease? It is yourprivilege to do so without sending for the Elders. . . . It is the privilegeof a mother to have faith and to administer to her child; this she candoherself, as well as sending for the Elders to have the benefitof their

faith.72++++

During this time period, both Brigham Young and Eliza R.Snow encouraged women to seek training in obstetrics, to exercise


+ 69Irene M. Bates and E. Gary Smith,Lost Legacy: The Mormon Office ofPresiding Patriarch (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996), 144; JamesHenry Martineau, Patriarchal blessing for Josephine Thurston Martineau,in Godfrey and Martineau-McCarty, An Uncommon Common Pioneer, 509.++ 70InSnowsmeetingwith Relief Societies, she frequently instructed thewomen on healing and encouraged individual Relief Society members toad-minister to the sick. See, e.g.: Thirteenth Ward, Relief Society Minutes, April30, 1868, microfilm of manuscript, LR 6133 14; Eleventh Ward, UniversityWest Stake, Relief SocietyMinutes and Records, March 3, 1869, microfilm ofmanuscript, LR 2569 14; Kingston Ward, Relief Society Minutes, May 26,1879, microfilm of manuscript; Nineteenth Ward, Salt Lake Stake, LadiesPrayerMeeting Minutes, July14, 1877, 88, microfilm ofmanuscript,LR609231. For the administration of healing rituals as part of Relief Society meet-ings, see, e.g., Seventeenth Ward, Salt Lake Stake, Relief Society Minutes andRecords, Vol. 5, March 5, 1874, microfilm of manuscript, LR 8240 14.+++ 71Derr and Madsen, Preserving the Record and Memory of the Fe-male Relief Society of Nauvoo, 91104.++++ 72Brigham Young, Sermon, November 14, 1869,Journal of Discourses,13:155.


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the power of faith, and to maintain independence from Gentiledoctors. Furthermore, women who received medical training also ad-

ministered healing rituals.73*

Though all Churchmembers couldadminister healing rituals,74**

the network of women who had been set apart by a priesthood leader(e.g., a stake president, an apostle, a patriarch, etc.) to wash, anoint,and care for the sick modeled ritual practice and mentored women inhealing administration. This formalization of authority occurredboth within sacred and mundane spacewhetherwashingand anoint-ing for health in the temple or for childbirth outside of it, female net-

works conveyed knowledge and experience via ritual administration.Inaddition toaddressingwomen in moreformalized Churchsettings,leading sisters75***like Eliza R. Snow and Zina D. H. Young providedindividualized mentoring and ministering by initiating a new genera-tion of women into motherhood through ritual washings and anoint-ings. Helen Mar Whitney Kimball recalled the role that female lead-ers played inrituallyadministering toyounger womenand theneedtotransmit such knowledge:

TheDrcouldnot cure me,so Id no other source to look tobut myFather in Heaven so concluded to send for Sister [Eliza R.] Snow whocame soon bringing Sister [Margaret Thompson] Smoot. They washed& anointed me & I was greatly comforted. We talked about many


* 73Rachel Emma Woolley Simmons,Reminiscences andJournals,May19, 1883, 72, microfilm of holograph, wrote: I went to see Mary Whitney,She is suffering muchwith a bad leg since her confinement. I amher doctor.She wanted me to anoint her leg and administer to her and she said sheknew it would be better, so I did as she required, and the Lord heard myprayers and blessed the anointing. I called the next Tuesday, she said it hadbeen getting better ever since. She asked me to administer to her again. Idid so andwhen I called on Friday I found herso muchbetter I will not haveto go again for a while.** 74In general instructions to the Relief Society, Snows successor ZinaD.H.Young reiterated: It isunnecessary to be set apart toadminister tothesick with washing and anointing. Zina D. H. Young, Relief Society Instruc-

tions, holograph on Relief Society letterhead dated 189_, CR 11 301, Box4, fd 11.

*** 75Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, The Leading Sisters: A Female Hi-erarchy in Nineteenth-Century Mormon Society,Journal ofMormon History9 (1982): 2540.


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thingsamong the rest I told someof myexperience. SisterSmoot toldme she thought I would be a great benefit to the young sisters to hear

my history & she considered it my duty to tell them.76****

The role of the Joseph Smiths revelatory endorsement of fe-male healing cannot beoverestimated in thenarrativehistory ofUtahhealing culture. SmithsApril28,1842, discourse totheRelief Societywas the rhetorical basis for female participation in ritual healing, be-ing repeatedly referenced in Relief Society meeting minutes. Thisdis-course was also frequently reprinted in various periodicals, includingthe Womans Exponent and Deseret News.

The formal organization of the Relief Society general presi-dency in 1880, with Eliza R. Snow as president and Zina D. H. Young,and Elizabeth Ann Whitney as counselors, facilitated further trainingfor women in healing ritual and academic medical training.77+Threemonths earlier, Church leaders held a special meeting in associationwith the April 1880 conference for apostles and stake presidencies.Among other instructions, leaders were taught: Sisters could not layon hands by authority of the holy priesthood but in the name of JesusChrist & by the prayer of faith heal the sick.78++The following fall, theQuorum of the Twelve, thenheaded by JohnTaylorwhohad yet to re-organize the First Presidency after Brigham Youngs death, sent out acircular letter reiterating this position on female administration:


**** 76Helen Mar Whitney Papers, Reminiscences and Diary 1876 andNovember 1884September1885, January 9, 1876,quoted in Jeni BrobergHolzapfel and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, eds., A Womans View: Helen MarWhitneys Reminiscences of Early Church History (Provo, Utah: BYU ReligiousStudies Center, 1997), xxxvxxxviii. Whitney was the recipient of femaleblessings before the exodus west. The Womans Exponent frequently pub-lished memoirs and tributes to prominent sisters which served as a methodof transmitting female culture to younger generations. See also Derr andMadsen, Preserving the Record and Memory of the Female Relief Societyof Nauvoo, 113.+ 77When John Taylor ordained Zina D. H. Young as a counselor in theRelief Society general presidency, he included in his blessing, Thou shalt

have the gift to heal the sick. John Taylor, ordination of Zina D. H. Young,Minutes of General Meeting Held in the Fourteenth Ward Assembly Hall,July 17, 1880, in Relief Society, Record, 18801892, microfilm of CR 11175.++ 78Godfrey and Godfrey, The Diaries of Charles Ora Card, 184.


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It is the privilege of all faithful women and lay members of theChurch, who believe in Christ, to administer to all the sick or afflicted

in their respective families, either by the laying on of hands, or by theanointing with oil in the name of the Lord: but they should administerin these sacred ordinances, not by virtue and authority of the priest-hood, but by virtue of their faith in Christ, and the promises made tobelievers: and thus they should do in all their ministrations.79+++

Local priesthood leaders in turn preached female ritualhealing, com-municating these general directives to their congregations.80++++

The Relief Society general presidency also played a role in af-

firming female ritual healing during this period. As the scope ofSnows leadershipexpanded, she urged women to grasp the full man-date of the Relief Society and began extensively training women asshe continued her travels throughout the Utah Territory. She empha-sized the essential work of salvation, the legitimacy of womens workin the priesthood order, and the significance of the Relief Society inthe Churchs history, both ancient and in modern times. She often re-affirmed female healing stating, for example that, when visiting, the

teachers should administer to the sick and wash and anoint them alsoconfirm these blessings upon them by the laying on of hands. Weneed to be filled with the Spirit of God.81*

Zina Young and Eliza R. Snow worked together throughout this


+++ 79Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Circular Letter, October 6, 1880,microfilm of holograph, CR 2 30.++++ 80See, e.g., Godfrey and Godfrey, The Diaries of Charles Ora Card, 232,234, 239, 244.* 81Eliza R. Snow, Special meeting of the Kanosh Relief Society, No-vember 12, 1880, printed in Various, R. S., Y. L. M. I. A. and Primary Re-ports, Womans Exponent 9 (December 1, 1880): 103. See also Scipio Ward,Millard Stake, Primary Association Minutes and Records, November 9,1880,quoted in Jill Mulvay Derr,Mrs. Smith Goes toWashington: Eliza R.SnowSmiths Visit to Southern Utah, Juanita Brooks Lecture Series (St. George,Utah: Dixie State College of Utah, 2004), 14; Elizabeth Bean and CatherineA. Hunt, Minutes of the Quarterly Conference of the Relief Society of

Sevier Stake, October 25, 1880, printed in Various, R. S., Y. L. M. I. A. andPrimary Reports, Womans Exponent 9 (November 15, 1880): 94; Godfreyand Godfrey, The Diaries of Charles Ora Card, 284;S.A.Parsons,MinutesofaSpecial Meetingof theManti ReliefSocietyand Y. L.M. I.A.,September 23,1881, printed in Various, R. S., Y. L. M. I. A. and Primary Reports,


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time period, linked not only as presidency members but also throughpolygamous kinship (both had been plural wives of, first, JosephSmith, and second, Brigham Young), further cemented by the experi-ential bonds formed in Winter Quarters and the proximity of livingtogether in the Lion House. They were referred to as the yin andyangofnineteenth century Relief Society. . . . SisterEliza was the headof the womens work, Aunt Zina was often said to be its heart.82**

Their role as administrative and ritual guides laid out the paradigmof Relief Society during their lives. Accounts of Relief Society meet-ings from a broad geographical region reveal similar vignettes

throughout the Church. For example, Joseph I. Earl of Bunkerville,Nevada, recorded in 1881:

Bro. Sam Knight brought Sister Eliza R. Snow, Zina D. Young andMinerva Snow. They held a meeting in the forenoon and all spoke bythe Spirit and Power of God, giving good counsel to both old andyoung. In the afternoon they organized the Childrens primary Associ-ation. And in the evening they organized the Young Ladies Associa-tion. . . . SistersSnowand Young anointedand blessed Calista,who was

sick. Sister Snow spoke in the gift of tongues and Sister Young inter-preted and Calista felt much better after they got through.83***

Throughout the1880s, this duty ofblessingand healingwas reit-erated at a variety of Relief Society conferences. Invoking the restora-tionist ideals of Joseph Smith at the first Logan Relief Society confer-ence following the general organization, Eliza R. Snow declared, Wewant to contend for the faith that was once delivered to the Sts whenthe dead were raised Sick healed &c &c, fear and faith never dwell in

the Same bosom.84****

This period was one that secured and consoli-dated womens authority and power. Diaries and other records regu-larly describe healing administrations performed by women. Con-finement blessings became a regularly established fixture upon the


Womans Exponent 10 (November 15, 1881): 95.** 82Derr, Cannon, and Beecher, Women of Covenant, 127.

*** 83Joseph I. Earl, Journal, January 26, 1881, in Owen Ken Earl, comp.,

Journals from the Life and Times of Joseph Ira Earl and His Wife Elethra ClaistaBunker and HisWife Agnes Viola Bunker(Moses Lake,Wash.: Owen Ken Earl,1986), 58. For a similar healing, see May Jacobs, Cured by Faith, Juvenile

Instructor29 (April 15, 1894): 146.**** 84Godfrey and Godfrey, The Diaries of Charles Ora Card, 283.


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landscape ofwomens health, and women were sought as healers bothindividually, in groups of Relief Society representatives, and as colla-

borative administrants with male counterparts.The establishment of the Deseret Hospital further formalized

and institutionalized the relationship between women and healing.At one Relief Society Conference, participants heard a wide range ofspeakers expound on the importance of blessing and caring for thesick:

Dr. Ellis R. Shipp spoke upon faith and washing and anointing ofthe sick. . . . Mrs. Phebe Woodruff, in addressing the congregation,

spoke earnestly in reference to the Deseret Hospital. . . . She also spokeof the benefit of the washings and anointing for the sick. PresidentWilford Woodruff spoke very encouraging to the sisters, both in re-gard to the duties and responsibilities which necessarily devolve uponthem and also the administration to the sick and afflicted.85+

Women like HannahAdelineSavage found both medical support andritual healing at Deseret Hospital. Lucy Bigelow Young, one of Brig-ham Youngs wives, toured the hospital with Dr. Romania B. Pratt.

Savage wrote that Dr. Pratt said to me []Sister Young has greatfaith[] as she knew that I was desirous of being administered to whenanopportunity presented. So I asked Sister Young tobless meand usethe holy oil which she did. She gave me a great blessing and told me Ishould be healed and that I should administer unto thousands.86++

Perhaps the apex of female ritual healing in the nineteenth cen-tury was the fiftieth anniversary jubilee celebrations of the Relief So-ciety, where female healing was repeatedly affirmed. At the Logan

celebration, Jane Snyder Richards, spoke about the rights and privi-leges of the sisters and theirduty inregard to administering tothe sickand rebuking disease. Her husband, Apostle Franklin D. Richards,similarly emphasized female healing and recounted Joseph Smiths


+ 85Anonymous, Relief Society Conference, Womans Exponent 11(August 1, 1882): 37; line breaks removed.

++ 86Hannah Adeline Savage, Record of Hannah Adeline Savage, Woodruff

Arizona, and Journal(Pinedale, Ariz.: Petersen Publishing, 1976), 1415;line break removed; see also p. 12. The Relief Society championed theDeseret Hospital as a place for both medical care and ritual administration.Anonymous, First General Conference of the Relief Society, Womans Ex-

ponent 17 (April 15, 1889): 172.


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April 28, 1842, revelation at the Ogden celebration.87+++After ApostleJohn Henry Smith read a discourse by Bathsheba Smith,88++++whichhighlighted female healing during the Salt Lake City celebration, Jo-seph F. Smith stated: It is just as much the right of the mother as ofthe father [to heal], although he, holding the priesthood, can do it byvirtue of this as well as in the name of the Lord. The women are notespecially called upon to visit from house to house to administer tothe sick, but they can do so properly, if called upon.89*The originaltext of JosephSmiths April28, 1842, teachingsonfemalehealingwasalso reprinted with the jubilee reports.90**

The administration of healing rituals to women remained achief concern during the presidential tenure of Zina D. H. Young, apotent healer who taught in a concrete manner.91***For three years1889 to 1891Young kept a meticulous ledger in which she noted the


+++ 87Anonymous, Relief Society Conference, Womans Exponent 20(May 1, 1892): 157; F. D Richards, The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Organi-zationof theRelief Society, [Ogden,Utah] Standard5 (March20, 1892):2.

++++ 88Bathsheba W. Smith stated: This organization is not only for thepurpose of administering to the sick and aff licted, the poor and the needy,but it is to save souls and that if the sisters come before the Lord in humil-ity and faith and lay hands upon the sick and the Lord heals them, noneshould find fault. Bathsheba W. Smith, discourse read by Apostle JohnHenry Smith inTheReliefSocietyJubilee,DeseretWeekly, March 26, 1892,435. Apostle Abraham H. Cannon also spoke in support of female healing:It must fill the hearts of the Saints with the joy to think of the gloriousworkthe sisters have done. We cannot conceive of how great a help they havebeen to the Church, although we know of many houses to which they havecarried comfort and brought relief in sickness and affliction. God has beenwith them in their work. Many miraculous cures havebeen affected throughtheir prayers and this has strengthened the testimony of many. But theirwork in the future will be even greater than that in the past. Abraham Can-non, Sermon, ibid., 433.* 89Joseph F. Smith, Sermon, ibid., 435.

** 90Anonymous, The Relief Society, Womans Exponent 20 (April 1,

1892): 14041; The Relief Society Jubilee,Deseret Weekly, March 26, 1892,43435.

*** 91See for example, Emmeline B. Wellss poignant description ofYoung as an inspired healer in Zina D. H. Young: A Character Sketch, Im-provement Era 5 (November 1901): 4546.


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dates, details, and recipients of blessings that she performed in theLogan Temple.92****During those three years, Young administered

anointings, washings and anointings, and blessings to at least 383 in-dividuals in the temple, virtually all women. (See Tables 1 and 2.) Re-f lecting on her ministry during this time, she wrote simply, I haveseen much of the power of God manifest healing the sick of all mostall kinds.93+

The effect of her ministrations are observable not only in dia-rists records of her interpersonal relationships, but also in terms ofthepatternthat wascommunicated toRelief Society women for ritual

performance. Minutes from a Salt Lake Temple womens meeting re-flect the power of her example over decades, Sister Mary Freezearose & stated a circumstance of twent [sic] years ago when she waswashed & annointed by Aunt Zina Young before her confinement &being told that she was Beloved of the Lord & the effect it had uponher & her strengthening her to become such.94++Relief Society work,both inand outsideof the temple, was the centerof attention for Zinathrough the end of the nineteenth century. Her death in 1901 sig-

naled a deepand long-lastingchange to the healingculture of womenwithin the Church.


**** 92Zina D. H. Young, Memorandum, Zina Card Brown Family Collec-tion, microfilm of holograph, MS 4780, Box 1, fd. 15. As blessings were fre-quently performed on thesameday (templeshad days specially set apart forhealing) and as there are many records of Zinas bestowing blessings out-side of the temple during this time that are not included on this ledger, weconclude that the ledger is a recordof her temple ministry. For examples ofthese extra-temple rituals not included in her ledger, see Zina Young, Diary,

January 23, February 13, 26, and March 5, 1890 and Oliver B. Huntington,Diary, typescript (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, 1942), 343.+ 93Zina D. H. Young, Diary, September 26, 1889. In that same entry,

Young wrote: Have been in thetempleat work in room no 3 since itopenedonely a brief absence of going to the city. Her blessing register chroniclesthis work in the temple.++ 94Salt Lake Temple, Sisters Meeting Minutes, December 7, 1893, mi-

crofilm of manuscript, CR 306 93. See also December 7, 1893; January 18,1894. Like Eliza R. Snow, Zina frequently exhorted Relief Society membersto administer healing rituals. See, e.g., Zina D. H. Young, minutes of dis-course, Heber City, July30, 1878, in Various, R. S.Reports,Womans Expo-nent 7 (September 1, 1878): 50.


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TABLE 1

ZINA D. H. YOUNGS TEMPLE HEALING AND BLESSING RITUALS,

188991

Year W/A W/A Anointing Misc.

Health Pregnancy Health Health Blessing Total

1889 23 60 27 17 14 1411890 6 52 15 6 11 901891 16 57 30 14 35 152

Total 45 169 72 37 60 383

Note: Temple Healing and Blessing Rituals Performed by Zina D. H. Young,

188991. Data extracted from Zina D. H. Young, Memorandum, Zina CardBrown Family Collection, microfilm of holograph, MS 4780, Box 1, fd. 15.W/A signifies washing and anointing. In some instances, Young notedthat the blessing was for health but did not indicate which ritual she ad-ministered. These instances are grouped in the generic Health category.Miscellaneousincludesblessingsfor whicha purposewas not indicated or

for reasons such as a sisters blessing, a blessing for her comfort, amothers blessing and blessing a woman for a mission to Mexico, forwhich the other categories do not account.

TABLE 2

ZINA D. H. YOUNGS TEMPLE HEALING AND BLESSING RITUALS,

188991, BY PERCENTAGE

Year W/A W/A Anointing Misc.

Health Pregnancy Health Health Blessing

1889 16% 43% 19% 12% 10%

1890 7% 58% 17% 7% 12%

1891 11% 38% 20% 9% 23%

All Years 12% 44% 19% 10% 16%



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REFORMATION OF LITURGICAL AUTHORITY

As the nineteenth century ended, both external and internalpressures led to shifts in the liturgical roles of LDS men and women.Specifically in response to non-Mormon healing, Church leaders re-formed the relationship of the Melchizedek Priesthood to the Mor-mon healing liturgy. Leaders changed traditional modes of femaleritual healing to accommodate the priesthoods elevated role in stabi-lizing and strengthening the Church.

Healing Authority, the Temple, and Priesthood

Before Joseph Smiths death, both men and women derived au-thority to heal from their Church membership and faith in Christ.The question of priesthoodand womens healing during this periodis therefore simply an anachronism. Women had healed for years be-fore Joseph Smith delivered his April 28, 1842, revelation on femalehealing to the Relief Society women, and they did not participate intemple rituals until the fall of 1843. In that discourse, however,Smith indicated that he intended that women join in the temple lit-

urgy and be endowed with power, by receiving the keys of the king-dom.95+++

With the inclusion of women in theNauvoo Temple liturgy, be-ginning with Emma Smiths initiation on September 28, 1843, ameasure of ambiguity entered into the relationship between womenand the priesthood. Joseph Smith often imbued words in commonparlance with new and sometimes radical meaning. Such was thecase with priesthood. Smith administered temple rituals to men

and women within a specially created quorum that contemporariescalled various names including the order of the priesthood, quo-rum of the priesthood, and simply the priesthood. Through thetemple rituals, women received the garment of the holy priest-hood and wore therobes of the holypriesthood. The temple quo-rum was also a space in which women received an expanded liturgi-cal authority and administered rituals of salvation and empower-ment. Records indicate that early female administrants of templerituals were also referred to as priestesses, a ref lection of the ulti-

mate promise to temple participants of the fullness of the priest-hood. In Smiths temple cosmology, men and women looked for-


+++ 95Stapley and Wright, The Forms and the Powers.


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ward to reigning through eternity as kings and queens, priests andpriestesses.96++++

Joseph Smith died before the completion of the Nauvoo Tem-ple, and consequently itwas left to the Quorumof theTwelveto trans-mit these concepts to the broader church. These Church leaders gen-erally assumed a separation between the liturgical or priestly func-tion of the temple (the new cosmological priesthood), the older gov-erning priesthood of the Church, and the authority to administer inthe healing liturgy. For example, in 1857 Mary Ellen Kimball, one ofthe plural wives of Heber C. Kimball, washed and anointed a woman

for her health and then wrote:After I returned home I thought of the instructions I had received

fromtime totime that the priesthood wasnot bestoweduponwoman. IaccordinglyaskedMr Kimball if womanhad a right to washand anointthe sick for the recovery of thier [sic] health or is it mockery in them todo so. He replied inasmuch as they are obedient to their husbands theyhave a right to administer in that way in the name of the Lord JesusChrist but not by authority of the priesthood invested in them for thatauthority is not given to woman.97


++++ 96For a more detailed discussion of this priesthood language, seeJonathan A. Stapley, Adoptive Sealing Ritual in Mormonism, Journal ofMormon History 37, no. 3 (Summer 2011). The significance of the priestlyaspects of the temple liturgy to the relationship between women and thegoverning priesthood of the Church is controversial. Further, teachingscontemporaneous with Joseph Smith are frequently stripped from theircontext. D. Michael Quinn, Mormon Women Have Had the Priesthood

Since 1843, argued that women receive the Melchizedek Priesthoodthrough the temple endowment. He also argues that Mormon womenhealed by this priesthood authority. A complete rebuttal to Quinns argu-ment is not possible here; however, Church leaders consistently taughtfromtheearliest days of theChurch that womenhealed as members of theChurch and in the name of Jesus. Carol Cornwall Madsen, MormonWomen and Temple: Toward a New Understanding, in Sisters in Spirit,80110, offers a similar narrative to Quinn. On the Anointed Quorumand the temple liturgy, see Andrew F. Ehat, Joseph Smiths Introduction

of TempleOrdinances andthe 1844 Mormon Succession Question (M.A.thesis, Brigham Young University, 1982); Devery S. Anderson and GaryJames Bergera, eds., Joseph Smiths Quorum of the Anointed, 18421845: ADocumentary History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2005); and Ander-son and Bergera, The Nauvoo Endowment Companies, 18451846.


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There*are examples of Church leaders speaking more ambiguouslyon the relationship of women to the priesthood, specifically in the

context of marriage.98**These examples highlight the linguisticcomplexity resulting from using words with evolving meaning andthedifficulty in discerning personal idiosyncrasy. For example, in apublic sermon in 1879, John Taylor asked, Do they [women] holdthe priesthood? Yes, in connection with their husbands and theyare one with their husbands.99***When Orson Pratt edited an ac-count of Joseph Smiths teachings for inclusion in the Doctrine andCovenants, he added an editorial clarification that the Order of

the Priesthood required for the highest eternal blessings was thenew and everlasting covenant of marriage.100****This usage is consis-tent with Joseph Smiths expansion of priesthood language inNauvoo, but not with the Church leaders view that women do not


* 97Mary Ellen Harris Abel Kimball, Journal, March 2, 1857, 7, type-script, LDS Church History Library. Helen Mar Kimball Whitney wrote inher diary of a debate in her household over women and the priesthood.Hatch and Compton, A Widows Tale, 170.** 98Eliza R. Snow occasionally followed Joseph Smiths Nauvoo-era us-age of the priesthood and the temple. See. e.g., Jill Mulvay Derr and KarenLynn Davidson, eds., Eliza R. Snow: The Complete Poetry (Provo, Utah:Brigham Young University Press/Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press,2009), 506.*** 99John Taylor, November 30, 1879, Journal of Discourses, 20:359.When John Taylor organized the Relief Society general presidency the fol-lowing year, he discussed the practice of ordaining Relief Society officers,which dated to Nauvoo, and stated: The ordination then given did notmean the conferring of the Priesthood upon those Sisters yet the sistersholda portionof thePriesthood inconnection with theirhusbands. (SistersE. R. Snow and Bathsheba Smith stated that they so understood it inNauvoo and have always looked upon it in that light.) Minutes of GeneralMeeting Held in Fourteenth Ward AssemblyHall, July 17, 1880, Relief Soci-ety, Record, 18801892, microfilm of manuscript, CR 11 175. See alsoBrittany Chapman, [Ruth May Fox Diaries] (Salt Lake City: University ofUtah Press, forthcoming), March 8, 1896; microfilm of holograph available

at the LDS Church History Library.**** 100Orson Pratt, ed., The Doctrine and Covenants, of the Church of JesusChrist of Latter-day Saints, Containing the Revelations Given to Joseph Smith,

Jun., the Prophet for the Bu

female ritual healing in mormonism by j. a. stapley and k. wright

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